At What Cost?
by Artemis Leaena
Summary: Would you be willing to pay anything ... do anything ... to get what you want most? Nothing in life is free ... not even freedom ... and everything comes with a price. You can have everything you want ... but at what cost? AH, OOC, rated M for language & references to violence. A short, drabble-ish fic that updates multiple times daily.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: **_The Twilight Saga _& all associated characters are the copyrighted creation & property of Stephenie Meyer. Any other publicly recognized characters, brands, quotes or "catch phrases" are the sole trademarked &/or copyrighted property of their respective creators. No copyright or trademark infringement is purposely intended with this story. The plot & any original characters of this story are the property of the Artemis Leaena. This work may not be reposted, reproduced, or translated into another language without the author's permission. This disclaimer will only appear once throughout this fic.

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**At What Cost**

"Why does this have to be so hard," the brunette beauty standing beside me muttered as she clutched her paper cup of coffee to her chest, her gaze drawn somewhere off in the distance. "I thought it was supposed to get easier with time."

"I don't think it's supposed to be hard forever. I don't know, but I think it gets easier … eventually."

She continued to stare into the oblivion of the nondescript corner or the pockmarked ceiling – basically looking everywhere but at me. Bella very rarely looked directly at me, or anyone for that matter. There had been a few times where I'd thought she might make eye contact with me, when we would be standing like this during the mid-point breaks, but even when her velvety brown depths were pointed in my direction it was as if she were looking through and not at me. It gutted me each and every time – the pain a tactile, burning sensation in the middle of my chest. I just wanted – desperately – for her to acknowledge me.

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**A/N:**

This is my first attempt at a drabble, & it was born out of a very dark/depressive mood I found myself stuck in for some time. FYI: some chapters are going to be more drabble-ish than others. This fic is completely written & will update 2 or 3 times a day daily until finished (ch23), & this will be the only A/N in the entire story. Please understand that, because of school & the quick updating schedule, I won't be able to do review replies per chapter…but I hope you leave me some love anyway.

Huge thanks & love to _**Tammygrrrl**_ for lending her beta services to this piece & to the best damn pre-reader in the fandom, _**caz12771**_, just for being her! =) Any mistakes throughout are my own as I tend to tinker after these lovely ladies are done working their magic, & I don't always "send it back to the cleaners." =)


	2. Chapter 2

Other than cursory greetings and introductions, no one had taken much notice of Bella when she'd first started coming to these survivor support group meetings, but I had. From that very first night, she had captivated me. I was drawn to her, an invisible steel thread pulling and binding me to her life essence. I was obsessed to the point where life outside of these four walls ceased to exist and held no meaning to me. There was only Bella, her forlorn, coffee-colored eyes, her sweet scent, her gentle voice, and this inexplicable connection I felt. It was an overwhelming, all-consuming raw need to surround, engulf, and consume her.

But I couldn't. I didn't have the right. She'd never even so much as uttered my name – although I was sure I had told it to her – in the three months we'd been attending these meetings together. We would sit beside each other in silence, a symbolic and physical void of space between us, while members of the group told their stories. We would inevitably end up at this semi-deserted end of the refreshment table, sipping on horrible meeting hall coffee during the breaks. And we would trade quiet utterings that felt more spoken at than to each other.


	3. Chapter 3

"I still feel him." She shook her head, seeming to attempt to clear it of some fog or other entrapment. Bella sighed, a deep, heavy, rattling breath rushing from her lungs, and sat her untouched beverage on the table. "I'm tired. I don't want to feel him anymore."

I reached my hand out, intent upon finally touching her, of laying my palm upon her shoulder in a sign of comfort, but I never got my chance. The group leader called the meeting back to order, and Bella turned away from me without another word. Perhaps it was for the best that my moment of physical weakness had been interrupted. Bella had made it clear, if not by word then by deed and action, from the get-go that she wasn't open to personal space invasions, and I probably would have freaked her out. That was the last thing I wanted to do.

Sucking up the disappointment at my lost opportunity – however fortuitous that loss may have been – I resumed my seat and went back to surreptitiously watching the mahogany-haired angel at my side as the meeting droned on.


	4. Chapter 4

It was another night that had crept up on me, the day preceding it fading to the recesses of my mind in blurry, disjointed flashes of nothingness. Another gathering of our little enclave in this tiny, poorly-ventilated meeting hall that would hold no meaning for me until she arrived to brighten and refresh the stale atmosphere. And it was another opportunity for me to bask in Bella's presence when she at last walked through the door. I lived for these moments. They were the only parts of my existence that held any clarity.

As per usual, Bella received and accepted the perfunctory greetings from our group-mates before she took her seat next to me. I almost envied them the fraction of a lip curl that fell way short of the mark of passing for a real smile she had graced them with in response. Her lukewarm responses to them were more than she gave me when I would lean over and say hello to her at the start of each session. In fact, I was usually met with a quiet gasp, a flinch or a cringe, and the sound of a small whimper as Bella squeezed her eyes shut tight. I tried to console myself with the fact that at least she was sitting beside me, but I always wanted more from her. Or less … depending on your perspective.


	5. Chapter 5

There was no explanation for the sense of belonging I felt when within a certain proximity to Bella, but I didn't care. I needed there to be less distance separating us. I needed more of her eyes, her smile, her laugh, her every breath. I needed to possess her, to take her inside me and merge us into a single being. But the fact that she was here, amongst this congregation, meant that she was far from being ready to allow me the ownership over her that my heart, body, and soul demanded I take. I could be patient. I _would_ be patient. Bella was worth it. I had no doubt of that.


	6. Chapter 6

The meeting had been called to order while I was lost in my sea of unrequited desires, the drone of someone or another telling their story – probably for the millionth time, because some people needed that constant vocalization to help them heal – buzzing around the periphery of my mind. At first, I wasn't sure what had pulled my focus from my own internal ramblings, but now that my attention was grabbed, I became aware of the acute change in Bella's demeanor.

When the meeting had started, her eyes had been slightly deader than usual, but now they were bright, glassy, and unfocused. Bella had sat stiff as a board in her folding metal chair, but she was now slumped in on herself. Her arms were crossed over her abdomen, her shoulders hunched, and her gaze was fixed on the chair in front of her as she rocked forward and back in quick, short swipes as she muttered over and over that she couldn't do this, whatever "this" was.


	7. Chapter 7

I leaned toward her, not wanting to invade her personal space too much, but I also didn't want to interrupt the monotonous prattler across the room. Mere inches separated my lips from her fragrant hair and the creamy expanse of skin covering her neck when I whispered in her ear. "Are you alright, Bella?"

Bella gasped, choking and coughing on the sudden influx of air, and ceased her erratic movements. Her already manic stare swung up and in wild arcs around the room, searching, scouring as she struggled to control her breathing. After a moment or two, she tightened her self-comforting embrace and resumed her back-and-forth motion, a touch of hysteria entering her voice as her mumbling also reappeared, though the words were different, more cryptic.

"It wasn't him. He's not here. He can't be here. He can't hurt me any longer. I'm safe."


	8. Chapter 8

It was stupid of me – irresponsible and moronic – but she was breaking my heart, twisting my soul, and confounding my brain. The thrumming compulsion to engulf, envelop, and encompass her entire being spiked and pulsed with a life of its own. Before I could talk myself out of it, I did what I'd been dreaming of doing for so long. I reached out and laid a hand on her shoulder, my fingers squeezing in encouragement even as a lightning bolt of recognition sliced through my mind. The images violent in their shocking intensity.

Piercing screams filled the room, echoing off the cement and plaster walls as Bella wrenched away from me, throwing herself onto the floor in an ignoble heap. She was panting and shivering around each shrill screech, but her wide, fright-filled gaze found and penetrated mine. It was only for a fraction of a second, but it was the first time she had ever made direct visual contact with me. It was the first time I'd ever been allowed to stare into her mocha pools, and the stark, raw terror I saw reflected there stole my breath. All too soon, I was once again deprived of their invisible touch on my face, and the inky abysses of her pupils consumed the chocolate rings banking them as they began skittering around the room.


	9. Chapter 9

There was something about the tableau before me that set off a burning ache within me. It was a ghost of a vision, dancing behind my eyes, taunting me with its estranged familiarity, there and gone in the span of a blink. Before I could travel farther into the murky fog of my mental apparition, Bella jumped up and ran from the room, knocking chairs and people aside in her bid to flee as fast as her stumbling feet would allow.

What had just happened? What were those images swirling in the obsidian depths of her eyes when our gazes locked? And what was this searing, chilling, tearing pain ripping through my chest? I didn't have the answers to those questions, couldn't even begin to comprehend their meanings. But I didn't need their knowledge, because no matter the firestorm that had been ignited by my electrified touch to Bella's shoulder, a powerful awareness was now blazing through my consciousness: Bella was mine. Mine to claim, to possess, to control. I knew it as sure as I knew my own name … and soon, she would know it, too.


	10. Chapter 10

Tight, insincere smiles were the only greetings I spared for people that night as I arrived at the meeting. No one paid my mood any heed. They took pains to give me a wide berth, stepping aside as I approached, or they flat out ignored my presence. Whatever their motivations were for avoiding me, I couldn't have cared less. So long as they stayed the hell out of my way, they were welcome to do whatever they wanted.

I prowled the room like a caged animal on the verge of attack, stalking from one end of the short hall to the other and back again. I felt edgy, untamed, and perturbed in the most primal and feral of ways. Why wasn't Bella here yet? Where the fuck was she? I could feel her, as if she were close, but I couldn't see her. I was incomplete without her, a part of me empty, hollow, missing. Didn't she know this yet? Why couldn't she sense me and my needs like I could ….


	11. Chapter 11

"Hello, Susan," Bella addressed the woman with garish red hair who stood sentinel by the door. Susan's job tonight was welcoming each new entrant as they passed over the threshold – except me. I hadn't been afforded the courtesy.

As soon as Bella's shy and timid, but haunting and melodic, voice had tickled my ears, I'd swung in her direction. I was ravenous and feasted upon the vision of her. Without conscious effort, my feet carried me forward to where she stood, a solitary pillar of awkwardness, wringing her hands. I was pleased to note that the crazed, demented look that had permeated her eyes the other night was gone, replaced by her usual blend of sadness and … determination?

"Hi, Bella," I greeted her in a soft tone, being mindful to also keep a respectable distance lest I scare her again.


	12. Chapter 12

She had been looking in the opposite direction, biting her lip, but at my words, her gaze turned toward me. The corners of Bella's lips curved down a fraction, a furrow cutting into her forehead. Although she was looking right at me, it was more as though she were looking through me. It was disconcerting to say the least and sparked a tiny kernel of rage to life within me.

"Listen, Bella, about the other night. I wanted to–"

"Could everyone please take your seats and we'll get started?" Rick, the group leader, called out in his deep baritone.


	13. Chapter 13

With a sigh slash growl of resigned frustration, I watched Bella turn and walk away without a backward glance, certain she would choose a spot as far from our usual place as possible, but she didn't. I sank into my customary cold, metal chair, Bella already occupying her rightful spot beside me. Her back was stiff, her ass perched on the very edge, and her heels were bouncing up and down causing her entire body to vibrate.

"Bella," I whispered and scooted my chair closer, the backs of my fingers ghosting down the length of her arm of its own volition.

Bella sucked in a sharp breath and pressed her lips together, her jaw locking, ensuring they stayed that way, and her eyes squeezed shut. Goosebumps erupted over every inch of her exposed skin, and she started rocking like she had the other night, only with her hands clasped together between her knees instead of wound around her torso.

"You're okay. I'm here to help."


	14. Chapter 14

I continued to stroke her soft flesh, even as she started shivering and muttering "No, no, no" over and over between piteous moans. She recoiled from my touch but seemed to be fighting not to do so. I didn't want her to fight me. I wanted her to give in to the comfort I was offering – and everything else I had for her. She wasn't screeching like the other night, so I grew bolder in my quest to calm her and placed my other hand on her thigh as I once again murmured her name.

"Bella," I murmured, allowing my breath to wash over her and watched in fascination as it ruffled her hair.

"Bella?" Rick intoned from his spot at the podium at the same time.

A squeak escaped Bella as she stifled a shocked scream, and she jumped, rattling her chair and almost falling out of it. Her newly opened and frightened eyes shifted to Rick. "Yes?"

Her shaky whimper could barely be heard, but judging by Rick's raised eyebrows, I knew he had. "Would you like to share your story tonight?"


	15. Chapter 15

"He's not here. He can't hurt me. I'm allowed to speak. I need to speak," she muttered to herself, shaking out her limbs and tossing her head from side to side a time or two and knocking my hands away. She cleared her throat and stood, answering Rick and the score of watchful stares surrounding her. "Hello, everyone. My name is Isa–" She cut herself off, her lids falling closed, and her frail arms winding about her midsection. She gave herself another all-over shake, cleared her throat once more, opened her eyes, and continued. "Bella … my name is Bella C-S-Swan."

"Hi, Bella," several voices offered in friendly if slightly confused greeting.


	16. Chapter 16

"Um … so, yeah … I'm Bella …" her gaze skittered around the room, never landing on anyone for more than a second, as one of her arms released its death grip on her and snaked up so she could run her shaking fingers through her hair. "I'm … uh … not really sure where to start."

"You can start wherever you're most comfortable with, Bella. Most people start at the beginning, but this is your story. You can tell as little or as much as you need. We're all here to support you." Rick's deep, soothing voice seemed to calm her, and I wanted to plant my fist in his sympathetic face. I wanted to be the only one to comfort her.

"Yeah … um … okay … the beginning. That's where Jasper said I should start, too." Bella blew out a harsh breath and stood a little taller.

I was proud of her strength, but angered that I wasn't the one providing it to her. And who was this Jasper asshole? My gaze skimmed over every male in the small crowd to see if any were paying more attention to Isabella than they should. She was mine, and mine alone. I should be her everything.


	17. Chapter 17

"My husband and I were married for almost ten years, but we had dated for about three or so years before we married. He was two years older than me when we met, and I couldn't believe that the most handsome boy in school wanted to take me – a plain, boring, lowly freshman – to his junior prom. From that moment on, I was his. My world revolved around him, and I would have done anything to make him happy. But I couldn't always do that – make him happy, that is. I often needed to be corrected on what to wear, how to act around his friends, or where I could go if he wasn't with me.

"The two years between his graduation and mine were difficult. He insisted I carry a phone with me at all times. He would call or text me throughout the day, and I had to call or text him as soon as I got home from school. My parents didn't like how he would tell me what to do, but it made him happy. That was my only goal in life: to make him happy. We married as soon as I graduated high school, and things were stressful in the beginning. Money was tight, but he didn't want me to work or go to school. He said it was his job to earn the money and take care of his family, and it was my job to take care of him, our home, and the babies he wanted us to start having. He wanted a large family."

Thus far, I didn't see anything wrong with what Bella's husband had wanted. If she were my wife, I'd want to be her sole focus, as well. I'd want her in my bed, cooking my supper, round with my children. Her father had probably just been a control freak who couldn't stand someone else taking care of his daughter … the fucking bastard.


	18. Chapter 18

"He loved me … I know he did. No matter what anyone says, I know my husband loved me. Even when he ..."

Fat tears were dripping from her darkened lashes, and both arms were once again crossed over Bella's middle as she drew in a ragged breath and visibly attempted to hold herself together. I wanted to wrap my own arms around her, be that support she needed, shelter her from the storm raging within her.

"He told me he loved me all the time ... every day. He just wanted to make me a better person. In the beginning, and while we were dating, he would sometimes grab me too hard – I always bruised so easily – when he was angered, but he always apologized, and he never raised his fist to me. At least, not before we were married." She took a deep breath, and her eyes glazed over.

"The first time he hit me was when he found out my father had been by to fix a few things around the house shortly after we were married. I tried to explain that I hadn't asked Dad to make the repairs. Dad had come by to see how I was doing because he hadn't heard from me since the wedding, and he offered to help out. He knew I was useless with tools and that my husband was busy with work and school. But my husband accused me of not having faith in his ability to take care of me. He said a good wife was loyal and didn't betray her spouse with disrespect." More tears trickled down her stoic face, and her voice turned to lead. "He busted my lip and blackened my eye that night. I dont know why I let it ... he loved me ... but things ... they only got worse from there.

"Over the years, he broke both of my arms, one of my legs, gave me multiple concussions, broke my ribs several times – puncturing my lung one of those times – and …." her lids clamped shut so tight that they wrinkled up and disappeared, and she gulped, swallowing the lump in her throat "One night, I wasn't feeling well, and I'd been laying down most of the day. I lost track of time and didn't have his dinner done when he came home from work. That night, he kicked me so hard that I lost our baby. The baby that had been making me sick and was why his supper wasn't waiting for him."


	19. Chapter 19

I surged to my feet and towered over her, breathing livid fire down upon her. Was it so much to ask that she push through her discomfort to make her husband some food? He'd been working all day, earning the money that paid for the roof over her damn head. Was she so much more fucking special than the countless women before her who managed to have kids and still take care of their men? I was starting to see why he had beaten her. She was ungrateful, spoiled, and undisciplined. And blaming the child for her own selfish laziness? Yes, she definitely deserved to have been taken down a peg or two that night.

"It was always my fault, of course." Her humorless laugh pulled me out of my mental diatribe, but I didn't back off. Instead, I moved closer, enjoying how she trembled and the trapped, frightened look in her eye. "He would always say, 'You brought this on yourself, Isabella.'" She cringed, her nose wrinkling, at the mention of the name she couldn't bear to say earlier. "'Why do you make me do this to you?' 'I don't like punishing you, but you keep asking for it.' As if I had begged him to abuse me." Her snort was laced with derision that fanned the flames of my rage toward her.

"It took me a long time, but I finally realized that no matter how much he loved me, I was never going to make him or myself happy." She took a deep breath that I wanted to choke off. "I was going to leave him, had already contacted a divorce lawyer. I was so careful to hide it from him while I planned my escape, but somehow he found out anyway. I still don't know how, but he did.

"That was the night he fractured my skull. The night he dislocated my jaw, knocking two teeth out in the process. The night he kicked me so hard, he ruptured my spleen, broke five ribs, and punctured my lung ... again. The night he broke my femur in two places. The night he almost killed me." Her spine straightened, her chin rising, and her shoulders pulling back with the movement. "And that was the night I plunged a carving knife into his heart. That was the night I killed my husband ... E-Edward."

"You _bitch_," I screeched as I lurched forward, my hands aiming to close around her neck, but they never accomplished their goal. As soon as my fingertips made contact, a blinding, searing, white-hot pain shot up my spine and out to my every extremity, flowing through my veins in a river of agony, incinerating me from the inside out. I tried to scream, but no sound would escape the lava tube my throat had become. Everything exploded around me in a cacophony of ear-splitting sounds, scorching lights, and vibrantly bloody images, scalding the flesh from my bones … until all was silent and dark.


	20. Chapter 20

**BPOV**

The entire time I'd been speaking, I'd felt the frigid air around me swirl and compact, gathering closer to me and threatening to swallow me whole in its malevolence. From the very first meeting I'd attended, I'd felt it. Sometimes it remained on the periphery of my personal bubble, but other times, it invaded, attacking and leaving me feeling just as shaken and shattered as he used to make me feel. That was when it occurred to me that it was him. He was here. I didn't know how, and I didn't know why, but I knew it.

At my next session with Jasper, I'd voiced my theory. He hadn't believed that the survivors of abuse support group he'd sent me to when we'd switched from almost daily sessions to weekly was haunted, but he hadn't laughed at me like I'd expected him to, either. He'd counter-theorized that it wasn't an actual ghost that was terrorizing me, but my own residual insecurities and guilt, and the more fear and anxiety I fed them, the stronger they became. He encouraged me to remember that I was safe – to repeat it and believe it.


	21. Chapter 21

**BPOV**

Some days were easier than others to embrace that simple concept. Some meetings, I hardly felt the numbing tingles of fright crawling over my skin. Others, they were all I could concentrate on – especially over the last several months. The more I worked toward stepping forward in the group, the stronger that unknown presence became. It stifled and smothered me some nights, and it wasn't until I would step out into the fresh air of the parking lot that I'd be able to breathe without it feeling as though my lungs had been ripped out.

It was also during these past four or five months that Jasper had been working on getting me to say the name that I hadn't uttered in the just over two years it had been since I'd last gasped it as I lay dying on my kitchen floor. There had been a time in my life when that name would gladly slip from my tongue on a pleasurable moan or in naked adulation, but those days were long behind me, and it was a name I never wanted to pass my lips again. According to Jasper, though, it was a necessary step in finally claiming my freedom.


	22. Chapter 22

**BPOV**

Physically I was free. Logically, I knew this. I had a job that I loved. It was at a fast food place making minimum wage, but I was working and earning my own money for the first time in my life. I was in school, studying to be a Kindergarten teacher. I had my own apartment. It was just an efficiency, and I ran into myself if I turned around in the shower, but it was my own space. Another first for me. I even had a couple of friends now. Jessica and Alice were much younger than me, but in many ways, they were far more experienced in the world than I was. They never pushed me to talk about why I was starting school so late or anything about about my life beyond what I was willing to offer. They simply accepted me as I was. Their easy acceptance of me sometimes made me anxious and uncertain, but Jasper said that was normal and as I learned to accept myself, I their acceptance would come easier to me. I didn't have a lot in my life right now, but I did have was completely mine.

Obviously, I wasn't dating. It just wasn't a priority in my life, and I was okay with that. Jasper kept encouraging me to not close myself off to all possibilities, but I needed to be alone for a while and figure out who Bella Swan was as an individual. From the time I was fifteen, someone else had dictated my life for me. I had never lived for myself, and I needed to learn how to do that before I lived for someone else again ... if I ever would. Even the law considered me free. There had been an investigation, and the Cullens had pushed for murder charges to be brought against me. But the District Attorney's office had declared it a matter of self-defense.

No matter how free my life appeared on the outside, though, I was still shackled to the guilt that gnawed at me for what I'd done. I wasn't free from my regrets over how I should have handled things differently. I could have gotten help from my family – they hadn't completely written me off, and my mother had begged me on more than one occasion to let them come and get me. I'd tried to hide the entirety of my shame from them, but they'd known. I don't know why I didn't turn to them when I'd decided to get out, but it had seemed like the best idea at the time to quietly plan everything. The fewer people who knew, the less chance of my being discovered.

And I wasn't free from the psychological aftermath. There was more than just the fact that I had taken a life – self-defense or not, that stays with you – but I had to learn to live. It was a basic concept that people took for granted, but I didn't know how to do it. I might as well have been that fifteen-year-old again for all I knew about the world and surviving in it, but I would figure it out ... in time.


	23. Chapter 23

**BPOV**

I was working on overcoming all of my doubts and insecurities with the help of Jasper and this group, and the first step to claiming what was rightfully mine – and to truly believe it in my heart and mind – was to tell my story, break the chain of secrecy, and say that cursed name. After weeks and months of mustering my courage and then chickening out for one reason or another, I'd finally done it! I'd said his name aloud, and it had felt good. Liberating even. Just like Jasper had said it would. It was my final act of "defiance" and "disloyalty," laying his sins bare for the world to see and giving them his name, and I couldn't wait for my session with Jasper later in the week so I could tell him what I'd accomplished. I'd taken that first step, and I didn't regret it for a moment.

The instant I'd said Edward's name, the dark energy that was my constant companion here had risen up and tried to engulf and drown me, but it hadn't succeeded. Instead, it was as if the sun had come out and chased the skeletal fog away. The room felt warmer, brighter – not oppressive, heavy, and evil. I felt lighter, able to breathe without constriction. I had paid a high price, had incurred a debt that would take me many years to fully eradicate, but everything I had been through and continued to struggle with was worth the cost … the cost of my freedom from Edward Cullen.


End file.
